"You're too divided," Judd broke in. "It's the first lesson Psy soldiers learn. Don't try to take out changelings - get them to take out each other."
Someone growled and Judd wasn't sure that that primal sound hadn't come from one of the feminine throats. He remembered how Brenna growled at him when he got her mad. Her wolf side fascinated him - he liked seeing her claws.
"Let me guess," Hawke said, "before, the Council kept their interference minimal in this region because SnowDancer and DarkRiver kept each other in check."
Judd nodded. "Yes. And if the computer attack doesn't succeed in warning them off, they'll keep picking away at you and your nonpredatory allies - until your power base is eroded to the point of nonexistence. Then they'll launch a quiet offensive to install Council-friendly packs in place of your former allies."
His last words had the effect of a bomb. Questions came at him from every angle until he raised a palm for silence. "Yes," he said. "There are packs that have made agreements with the Council for money, land, or simply immunity from Psy strikes."
"So even if we set up some sort of chain of communication to prevent the Psy from starting another territorial war" - Hawke's face was wolf-sharp - "we have no way of knowing who's snitching to the Council?"
"I'd operate on the assumption that everything you say is being reported back."
"That can be turned to our advantage," Lucas pointed out.
Hawke nodded. "After we run this next op, we need to talk about how to fix our lines of communication - packs can't remain isolated from each other anymore. Not if we're going to survive the Psy Council."
The meeting broke up soon afterward and Judd immediately contacted the Ghost. Because he didn't want to leave the den, he took the chance of sending a coded message asking for a call on a secure line. The Ghost responded within seconds. "This call should be untraceable, but we can't talk for long."
"Understood." Judd laid out the situation with the deer and the Psy without mentioning either DarkRiver or SnowDancer. Just as he didn't know the Ghost's identity, the Ghost had no knowledge of where Judd went after he left the church.
"You need the names of the exact officers?"
"Can you get them?"
"I'll have to break into a secure PsyNet database, but that shouldn't pose a problem unless the information has been highly classified. I assume you don't want to talk to these men?"
Judd didn't answer because no answer was needed.
"My goal is to help my people," the Ghost said in the chill tone of a Psy fully enmeshed in Silence, "not sell them out. I may be a revolutionary, but I am not a traitor."
"To fight an evil that butchers innocent women and children isn't treason."
"I agree - at least in this situation. Killing those deer was akin to taking out the most helpless civilians in a war no one knows is taking place."
"Case by case? Fine. Your conscience will tell you where to go."
"I have no conscience, Judd." The Ghost's voice dropped. "I've got so much blood staining these hands nothing will ever wash it away."
"The future might surprise you." It sure as hell had shocked him. "And if you don't have a conscience, why did you become a revolutionary?"
"Perhaps I want to grab power for myself."
"No." Of that he was certain. "You do it because you see what the Council is turning the Psy into and you know it isn't right. We were the greatest of races once upon a time, the true - and just - leaders of the world."
"Do you think we can have that back again?"
"No." The world had changed, the humans and changelings gaining in strength with the passage of time. "But we can become something even better. We can become free."
Brenna was fixing some kind of a small computronic device when he found her in her quarters. "Judd," she said, putting down her tools. "You can't be here. The dissonance - "
He interrupted her panicked words. "I need to ask you something important."
"What could be more important than your life?" She sounded close to tears.
"Your life. If you die, I don't know if I'd stay sane." A simple truth.
Her hands trembled as she lifted them to push back her hair. "Ask your question."